Earlier this month, we celebrated my daughter's fourth birthday. Since she has already been expressing interest in music, but hasn't clearly told us what exactly she wants to play, we opted to get her the Melissa & Doug Deluxe Band Set. This kit includes a harmonica, clacker, xylophone, kazoo, tone blocks, jingle sticks, rhythm sticks, triangle, recorder, and castanets, pretty much everything you need to start your own elementary school band.

It's been quite wonderful to hear the sounds of these simple rhythm instruments filling our home as she discovers all of the different tones and sounds each one of them produce. It also warms this writer's heart to hear the words, "Daddy, come play a song with me," come floating up from the kids' downstairs playroom. Nothing brings me greater joy than to see her take such an avid interest in music this young.

This play set has also brought back so many great memories of my preschool and elementary school years, taking music class, sitting on the floor in a semi-circle with all of my classmates as our teacher was patiently introducing us to things like fundamental rhythms, the A-G musical scale, and other things that were laying the theoretical foundation behind something that has become such a integral part of my life.

Last week on Late Night with Jimmy Fallon, Jimmy and his house band The Roots teamed up with Mariah Carey and recreated one of her iconic Christmas songs on some of the very instruments many of us first learned to play a tune on.

In Randy Pausch's deeply inspiring The Last Lecture, he said, "If you’re going to have childhood dreams you should have great parents who let you pursue them and express your creativity." This is something that has really stuck with me, and is definitely one of the things my wife and I strive for in our home. For me, learning to play music was a childhood dream, and one that my parents always supported wholeheartedly. As a father, I want to do whatever I can in my power to help my girls achieve their own childhood dreams. And we here at Resound School of Music so enjoy the relationship we have with the parents who allow us the privilege of partnering with your children on their musical journey.

Who knows, maybe in the coming year there could be room for us to start up lessons with elementary school classroom instruments just for parents to help us recapture some of the fun and joy of learning something new for the first time.

(note: Resound School of Music is in no way associated, affiliated, or otherwise in cahoots with the Melissa & Doug brand. This writer just happened to find this particular item very cool for a budding musician)